1. Field of Application
This invention relates to personal ornamentation, jewelry, decorations and the like, and more particularly to such ornamentation, jewelry and decorations which are positioned or carried directly by a body part of a person.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Human beings have been adorning their body parts with jewels, decorations and other ornamentation for centuries. One such common form of body ornamentation are earrings which are directly carried by, hang from, or are otherwise positioned on, an ear or both ears of a person instead of being attached, for instance, to their clothing. It is quite common for persons who desire to wear earrings to have an ear or both ears pierced in one or more places to accommodate positioning the earring or earrings. However, once pierced the person has to position an earring part in the opening through the ear or the opening will close. Piercing of other body parts to attach jewelry, decorations or other ornamentations thereto has also become commonplace. Lips, noses, breast nipples, and other body parts once pierced also require placement of an ornament, decoration or other item through the pierced opening or the opening may close and require re-piercing.
Many people, however, do not wish to have their body parts pierced because of problems with keeping the pierced opening open. There are also concerns with possible health hazards due to having a pierced body part, from the body part piercing, and possible discomfort from either always wearing an ornament or whatever is utilized to keep the pierced opening open.
There are, however, earrings which do not require piercing the ear to facilitate wearing an earring. Clip-like or clasp-like arrangements such as those shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,684,783 patented to R. Spear on Sep. 18, 1928 for "Ear Ornament"; in U.S. Pat. No. 2,383,448 patented on Aug. 28, 1945 to C. Christy for "Ear Ornament"; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,739,599 patented on Jun. 19, 1923 to A. Malone for "Resilient Earring Including Means Limiting Pressure On the Ear Lobe"; and in British Letters Patent Number 19,730 patented on Feb. 1, 1912 to A. Halliday for "Improvements In Or Relating To Earrings", are known. However, all of these arrangements require the use of body gripping members which engage the body part over a relatively small area and which, therefore, may apply an unacceptable positioning pressure to the body part that results in discomfort to the wearer. Moreover, these body part gripping arrangements are peculiar to earrings and would most likely be unacceptable to position an ornament or decoration on other body parts such as breast nipples.
Examples of body decoration or ornamentation, particularly for positioning on the nipple of a person's breast, are shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,987,667 patented to H. Zwart on Jan. 29, 1991 for "Method of Decorative A Human Breast" and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,125,244 patented on Jun. 30, 1992 to H. Zwart for "Nipple Ring For Decorating A Human Breast". Both of these patents require use of a clamping collar of the type shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,824 patented to M. Lussier on Aug. 22, 1978 for "Clamping Collar" which encircles the nipple and may apply too much pressure around the entire nipple. Human breast nipples, like other human body parts, differ in size and shape. The Zwart nipple ring may prove unacceptable because if the smallest size to which the ring closes is still larger than the particular nipple upon which it is to be positioned the ring will fall off; and if the nipple ring closes to a size smaller than the users nipple then possible unacceptable pressure will be applied around the entire nipple creating discomfort to the wearer and/or distortion of their nipple's shape. In addition, squeezing the end pieces of the Zwart devices between ones fingers and manipulating the device over a nipple while resisting the built in spring effect to close the opening may prove to be troublesome and thus render the type of decoration and positioning unacceptable. D. Milawski, on the other hand, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,526 patented on Dec. 2, 1986 for "Nipple Decoration Device" provides spring biased arcuate pads for positioning a decoration on a human breast nipple. Here again the possible separation between the arcuate pads if too small may create a painful experience and if too large will result in the decoration not being properly positioned. Moreover, keeping the pads separated while positioning the device on a nipple appears to create some degree of difficulty. Separating the pads once the device is in place may present even greater problems. Also, once in position the weight of the tubular member, springs and pads will tend to pull the device off the nipple.